LesTate

77 year old (in 2022) former research chemist with no musical training, but a fairly good ear, patience, and woodworking talents, acquiring some luthier's tools and methods during the past few years. I have (as of this writing) 28 mountain dulcimers by various builders in various styles, woods, thicknesses, and vibrating string lengths. I built 3 of them myself from old kits (modifying and upgrading them as I went along) and modified, updated, repaired, or rebuilt all of the others: replaced strings, tuners, frets, nuts, and bridges, corrected builder's errors (fret positions, uneven fret heights, intonation, bad glue joints, uneven fretboards, high nuts, and low bridges), repaired cracks, breaks, and bends, refinished several, and even rebuilt a crushed dulcimer (got compliments from the original builder on that one). Not really a player, but can play a little and easily recognize off-notes. The oldest I have was built in the early 70s and the most recent (other than the ones I built) in 2014. Brands/makers: Capritaurus, Folk Roots, Folkcraft, McSpadden, Mastertone (Jim Good), and several others who are well-known and some not so.